Handbook

This course examines major questions and figures in European philosophy over the last two and a half centuries. As the task of understanding a philosophical text often involves identifying the thinkers with whom it is in dialogue and the public debates to which it is responding, context will be a recurring focus. Yet we will also explore how the arguments in these works can shed light on our own concerns and commitments, pushing us to clarify just what we believe our concerns and commitments to be. Themes the course may cover include the role of recognition in the understanding of the self, the genesis of consciousness and conscience, the status of truth in public life, the definition of reason and the operation of power in modern societies. Philosophers who may be examined include Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Adorno, Arendt, Derrida, Agamben and Honneth. Philosophical schools that may be explored include German Idealism, Phenomenology, Critical Theory and Poststructuralism.